CTRL/SHIFT - 14 06 2026 PARTHENOPE STAGE - ANDREW PFLAUM - RESTORING CHARITY TRUST WITH BLOCKCHAIN

Iben Venui. I'm Andrew Plum. I'm here to talk to you about a real world solution that helps charitable organizations through the use of blockchain. My background includes more than two decades of corporate finance, banking, that sort of thing. Few degrees.

Let me ask you something. Do you donate to charity? Raise your hand. Don't raise your hand. It's okay.

Good. Charity is a big business. It's a worldwide business. But the most significant thing I'd like you to take from this slide is the technology has the ability to revolutionize the entire industry. All of you, you're the technology.

Have you ever stopped giving to a charity? Maybe you didn't get a thank you. Maybe you felt like you weren't making a difference anymore. Maybe you didn't know where your money was going. It's a classic asymmetric information problem where the donor hopes that their money is going to do something good, but they don't really know.

The charity knows everything. The result, lower engagement, even disengagement. Maybe you would just walk away with it. Maybe you're done. This increase is the cost to raise the next euro or dollar for a charity.

And it's cost can be significant. On average, it's about 20%. It can exceed 100% depending on the charity in the event. Can you imagine spending more money to make less money? It happens.

But what if technology could fix a transparency and efficacy and prove you were making a difference? Would you give more? How much more would you give?

Many of you would many of you would give much more. Situation here is charity is a 600 billion euro plus industry per year worldwide. The cost raised euro is one of the most important metrics and highest expenses. But charities face opium. And the opium is that donors hope their money goes somewhere good and does something good.

But does it? Andopium really isn't enough to run a business, is it? Certainly not a 600 billion euro a year industry. Here's an example of versus intentionality gone wrong. Charity raises $500 million US for earthquake victims.

Upon investigation, they find six houses. What is that? 76 77 million a house. Not bad. Except when pressed, they said the money went to temporary shelters.

The money went to rental assistance, home repairs. 25% went to administrative expenses. The average is 20. Then they say a large portion went to other aid agencies. Do you think the other aid agencies have administrative expenses?

I think it's possible. That's more pennies away from the dollars to help people. Some funds were vaguely characterized as program expenses. Wonder what those were. What went wrong?

Lack of expertise and planning. The organization struggled to explain their story. They overpromised and there's a complex aid system. To be fair, it turns out that disaster recovery is incredibly complex. The cure is blockchain.

The cure forium is blockchain. Opium results from the lack of transparency between donors, charitable organizations, and recipients. People are more likely to give if they believe they're going to make a difference. You got a lot of things to do with your money, don't you? You want to know you're doing something worthwhile.

Organizations can thus benefit if they can tell a better story. Blockchain's a technology that can deliver that story. Smart contracts, the key, the ability to transmit the data transparently from donor to charity to recipient without interference. Shows trust and approves efficacy. The efficacy is proves you're making a difference.

Shows what you did, what you contributed to. But this depends on the willingness of charities to actually identify their supporters and their funds and show the movement of funds from supporters to the recipients. And the effectiveness depends on the willingness to identify even name the donors and to share the appropriate video or photograph, maybe even a virtual conference with recipients. to be able to say, "You made a difference to these people. Here's what you did."

My research shows that twothirds of people want to see the area of need before they donate. How bad is it? What could I do? Does it interest me? Is it my specialty?

Is it my thing? 31% would like a photo or video or a uh virtual meeting with those they helped. 65% would like to track their donation online as it moves from their account to the charity to the recipient like a DHL package. 85% believe technology can enhance the donation package. Anybody here into technology?

55% would think more favorably of organizations that use the most current technology. This is part of the story charities have to tell. Get this. Almost 38% would be willing to participate in mining a charity's blockchain for credit as a charitable contribution. That means your cost to raise a euro just went down in terms of cash expenses.

Your overhead just went down in terms of cash expenses. Will this work? Almost a third of donors want direct contact with recipients. They want to receive that image or video, somebody they helped. 40% would feel a stronger connection to those they helped.

This is based in actor network theory which was popularized in the late 20th century that says you can use nonhuman actors to bring people closer together to create higher levels of empathy. the non-human actors technology. The best part, 46% would be willing to donate more if they receive personal and direct feedback. Of that, twothirds would give 25% or more of their donation. And of the total, 8% would give double or more.

As a charity, you think your cost just went down? You can tell a good story. You can watch your cost drop double or more. Here's an example of how this might work in real life. I spent my whole life trying to connect different organizations and people and make things work in the middle.

So, here's a thought. It's not the only thought. You'll have many more thoughts. Tear the giving level with a personalized response. Maybe a lower level gift gets a photograph and a personalized thank you.

Maybe a second level gift gets a video with their name personalized and a thank you. Maybe a level three gift. And here I'm talking about the€ 10,000 the 20,000 euro gifts. Get actual live interaction. Maybe somebody walks you through a refugee camp and tells you what you purchased, what your donation helped, a hospital wing, instruments, books.

You got to accommodate all ages. Children can't give as much, but they give with as much heart. Schools may want longer term connections. In the US, we have things called bake sales. Children go home, they bake goods, they sell them, the money goes to charity.

Maybe the school wants a longerterm connection with the local school in Ghana, in Nigeria. Make it happen. And large charities may want to fund or coordinate their own fundraising events with virtual meetings to show donors what the need is and then what happened. Imagine sitting at a 500 euro plate dinner and you're ticking a box. I'm checking helping charity, but really you're looking at a plate of overcooked chicken, mushy green beans, and potatoes meant to fill you up so you feel like you had a meal and you're thinking about what you're going to do later until the moderator says, "I'd like to show you a video.

This is where our money went." A woman comes on, shows you a hospital, shows you the operating rooms, tells you the number of lives you saved. could be powerful. All of a sudden, you've forgotten about the dried up chicken and the mushy green beans. You're thinking about what you did.

There are always challenges. I'm not going to hide these. You got to connect the donors, the charities, and the recipients with the blockchain. You got to offer usernames because 71% of donors want to remain anonymous. I was astounded by this.

I didn't care before. 71% want to remain anonymous. You got to use an intuitive web interface to allow users to track their funds. You got to make it simple enough for people like me. I struggle with DHL.

I'm always putting the wrong information in the right box and vice versa. No, make it easy. Make it so simple your grandparents can follow their money. You got to identify your admin expenses. Own it.

If you're above the national average or the international average of 20%, say so. And then say what you're going to do to fix it. Is an economy of scale? Maybe you're going to buy equipment instead of rent it next time. Own it.

Tell people how you're going to fix it. It's part of the story. You got to set up the photos, videos, and virtual meetings with recipients and tie them to the donors. Anybody here got a smartphone? What?

Just me? Okay, anybody take photos on them, videos, maybe have conferencing? That's how hard the last step is. You need a smartphone on the ground. Transfer the images back.

If there's Wi-Fi, it's even faster. But the middle of Ghana doesn't always have Wi-Fi. The middle of Nigeria doesn't always have Wi-Fi. Take the video, take the pictures, make it happen anyway. send them back.

And do not overpromise, especially in early stages. Donors get turned off very quickly when they get promised one thing and delivered less. I'm currently working on a collaboration with Wells for All. It's a company that drills wells for water in Ghana. They received initial funding from hive.

io. They run their operations on the blockchain. And what I'm currently working with them on doing is the part of telling a better story. He can show where the money goes. It's just not getting to the donors and that's what we're working on the most.

Dr. Mr. Samuel Lulu Sububot is the founder. Um I urge you to connect with him. He is the nicest most affable.

He just it's wonderful. So they've secured funding for 25 bore holes already. 25 wells are in operation. Women and children don't have to walk for hours or kilometers to get dirty water from streams and suffer through waterbornne diseases and miss school. Children now have time to go to school.

And that's one of the key areas, key ways of helping people work themselves out of poverty is education. Clean water has connection to the education. It's important For decades I've For decades, I've watched people climb the ladder of success and then pull the ladder up behind them, making it harder for those that follow. This is the material I used on my thesis, my thesis presentation, and this slideshow. I put it here so you don't have to dig as hard as I did.

You don't have to look as hard as I did. Start here, climb higher, climb faster, and climb more intelligently. Now, if anybody would like, I'm available for wine, coffee, buy my wife and I wine. go by Andy instead of Andrew. But I'll be glad to work with you and talk with you about how this application and this story might help your organizations better.

What you do with information like this is up to you. The best I can do is show you, tell you, talk to you. What you do with it though is up to you. Thank you. And I hope we have time for questions.